The changing media ecosystem: implications for journalism

Guy Berger, Media24 conference31 July 2008, Johannesburg

Take a test… who are:

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin?• Stafford Masie?• Mark Zuckerberg?• Jimmy Wales?• Craig Newmark?

On the agenda

1. First world trends – a yawning international digital divide: but no time to feel sleepy!

2. Changing industry, audiences in First World.3. Media’s business model is breaking up.4. New architecture of Information Society.5. Web 2.0 = competition … and an opportunity.6. New news production7. Mobile – Africa’s answer?

1.First World Trends

At a conference in May in LV:

• Selling Online Using Market-Specific Research• E-Commerce Revenue Solutions• Great Interactive Ideas• Social Networking - How to Build it, Grow it and Bring in

the Bucks• Serving Readers & Advertisers thru Search Marketing• Managing Citizen Commentary and Contributions• 5 Things You Should Do in 2008 to Immediately Improve

Your Web Site

Who convened it?

SUBURBAN NEWSPAPERS OF

AMERICA

So why that online focus?

• Cf report: State of the News Media 2008:• Newspapers in USA ended 2007 with 8.4% less

circulation daily, 11.4% less Sunday than 2001. • Plus, print newspaper ad revenues

experienced their worst drop in more than 50 years.

• Network news programs averaged 23.1 million viewers a night, a drop of 5%, on 2006.

• Here’s one response to the pressure:

"This week's toll of the dead”Mark Potts, 26 June 2008

• The Boston Herald is laying off 130-160 employees.

• Daytona Beach News-Journal is cutting 99 jobs.

• In Detroit, the joint operating partnership that prints and distributes both papers wants 7 percent of the workforce–150 employees–to take buyouts.

• The Hartford Courant is cutting 57 newsroom positions.• The Palm Beach Post is eliminating 300 jobs across all

departments (130 in the newsroom).• The Baltimore Sun will cut 100 jobs in all departments by August.• The San Jose Mercury News is cutting 17 more employees, nine

of them editorial …• The Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram cut 31

jobs. • Total: Roughly 900 jobs eliminated just this week (and the week

ain't over).

During the past 7 months, 4,500 posts have been cut at U.S. papers: http://snurl.com/3047y\

For some: a shift in resources…

Survey of 259 editors

2. More on changing industry,

audiences in First World.

Audience patterns

• In 2000, 60% of people said they had got news online ever; 22% said they did it “yesterday”

• In late 2007, the number who got online news ever was up to 71% and 37% said they were online for news “yesterday.”

• Many people, especially the young, are just shifting to the same branded news content online produced by old media newsrooms.

Here’s the paradox:

• “More people in more places are reading the content produced by newspapers than ever before … But revenues are tumbling” (Pew)

• It is a race between them – whether that content will increasingly be produced on the cheap (a slippery slide to collapse)… OR whether the expanded readership outside the physical paper can be monetised.

Convergence trends

• Web was first seen by newspapers as a Stranger.

• Then as a Source…• Subsequently as Subversive (a threat).• Now it is seen as a Strategic ally…• Could it become a Saviour?• And what about mobile?

3.Existing business

model is breaking up.

Where it all began:

• Media content untied from physical formats. = it’s all data – with scores of possible

platforms to play out on.• And: EXPLODING of traditional horizontal

integration of processes formerly under the control of one media house.

IT WAS: Info gathering – editing – packaging – dissemination – loyal audience.

1. Info gathering: DISTRIBUTEDUGC; “import” via embedded links

2. Editing: DISTRIBUTEDGlobal outsourcing, User editing and ranking

3. Packaging: DISTRIBUTEDMulti-purposed platforms, 3rd party aggregators

4. Distribution: DISTRIBUTEDRSS, others’ platforms, get users to circulate

5. Consumption: DISTRIBUTEDLinks, Search engine based; Recommendation

Unbundled, Disarticulated, Dispersed

Dissolution of BUSINESS MODEL!

• As audiences shift, ad revenue doesn’t parallel. • “The crisis in journalism may not strictly be loss of

audience. It may, more fundamentally, be the decoupling of news and advertising.”

• News Web sites not growing in advertising revenue as quickly as other kinds of Internet destinations. And these figures do not include the most important revenue source, search, where news is a relatively small player.

Why?

4. New architecture of Information Society.

• There is a fundamentally new structure to media – Jeff Jarvis, buzzmachine

• Internet-isation

• Media-tisation

Eyeballs and economics• Content devalued by supply of online content

including user-generated content, a bunch of which includes content created by people who don't care if they get paid for its creation.

• Web: Ease, ad supported content, free culture.• = Information is not a scarce commodity; we’re

drowning in it. What is scarce is the human attention needed to make sense of it. We live in an attention economy. (21st century PR.)

5.Web 2.0 =

competition … and an opportunity.

Social networks & semantic web• About networks surfacing content, rather than isolated

surfing and searching. • “if the news is important, it will find me” • “Free up content to FOLLOW audiences…”• People return to places that send them away!• From internet of documents to database: metadata

becomes critical.• Read-write web: user contributions, not just “old

suspect” content producers. • Test: today ?????????? is king?

Us

Us

Us

Us

Us

Us

PEJ assessment:

• There is no single or finished news product anymore. As news consumption becomes continual, more new effort is put into producing incremental updates…

• News is shifting from being a product — today’s newspaper, Web site or newscast — to becoming a service — how can you help me, even empower me?

• Conversation, not a lecture…

Us & Them

6. New news production

Test 3:

News agency model: 1-2-3Associated Press

•Step 1: news alert headline for breaking news, and possibly then:•Step 2: short present-tense story mainly for web & broadcast, and then: •Step 3: details and format the content for different news platforms – eg. possibly as a textual news analysis, multi-media …

Looking ahead: News Diamond

SPEED• Alert (mobile, email)• Draft (blog)• Article/package

(print, audio, video forms)

DEPTH• Context (hyperlinks,

embedded content - widgets)

• Analysis/reflection (article/package in various formats)

• Interactivity (flash, chats, forums, wikis)

• Customisation (rss, ratings, social networking)

CMS is king…

New York Observer: “90% of the functionality of the NYT … at less than 10% of the cost”

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

• sky (50 points), bird (60 points), soaring (120 points), or frigate bird (150 points).

Some automation possible…

New newsroom role at Telegraph: head of comment and community

Mojo’s filing video…

Time in a Web 2.0 world

• 1-5 Hours per Week = Participant (UGC)• 5-10 Hours per Week = Content Provider• 10-20 Hours per Week = Community Director

7.Mobile – Africa’s answer?

Mobile Africa

• Reuters last year: world wide mobile phone subscriptions reached 3.3-billion users or half the world’s population.

• Compare this to television usage (about 1,5-billion users)

• … or to desktop internet usage (about 1,1-billion users).

8.Looking ahead

Our future…

• Hardware: Form factor hurdles overrated.• Software: Android = an open source, Linux-

based operating system for mobile devices. • Habits: DVB-H & 2010 will drive conversion of

cellphones from interpersonal comms to an interactive media device.

• Mobile opens whole new market for location-based services.

• Business model: mix of subs, ads, free, UGC.

Want more?

• “There is a very big disconnection between optimistic thinking about the future newsroom and the preparation, training and resources that editorial organisations seem to be giving to it.” George Brock (WAN)

• 12th Highway Africa, 7 to 10 September Citizen journalism or Journalism for Citizens? Contact: C.Kabwato@ru.ac.za

Yawning digital divide, but:

No time for sleeping.No time for digital dreams.

Time for digital action….